Category: activism

For the 15th anniversary of the April 2001 Summit of the Americas protests in Québec City against the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), here is a selection of posters related to the FTAA (and other related) protests, taken from the book: Picture This!: Posters of Social Movements in Québec (1966-2007) by Jean-Pierre Boyer, Jean Desjardins and David Widgington. The book was published in 2007 by Cumulus Press. Each of these posters are archived with over 20,000 others in the impressive collection at the Centre for Research in Popular Imagery (CRIP). === À l’occasion du 15ième anniversaire des manifestations...

Because it works, it’s easy and because as admitted by Enbridge in documents submitted to the National Energy Board, Line 9 is disintegrating. The documents reveal that the pipeline has 4738 anomalies related to the formation of fissures and 8223 anomalies related to corrosion. Basically they admit that there are at least 12,961 locations along the pipeline that are on the verge of an oil spill. Last Monday, December 7, 2015 three protesters locked themselves to a valve they closed along Enbridge’s Line 9B pipeline as it enters Québec from Ontario. The valve controlling flow of tar sands bitumen was...

Yesterday, March 2, 2015, I walked along downtown streets with about 75,000 other people in Montréal’s anti-austerity demonstration. My bike is clean as I ride it for the first time this spring down St-Urbain street toward Square Victoria where the demo is scheduled to begin at 1 pm. The forecast rain is hiding behind a blue sky and a warming sun. A perfect day to walk the streets of Montréal. I ride into the École nationale de théatre contingent, get off my bike and march the rest of the way with them and their giant puppet. As we turned onto...

The Printemps québécois ended 2 1/2 years ago. It was the largest protest movement in Québec history that lasted six months and was punctuated by more than 600 demonstrations, actions, occupations and blockades that dominated public discourse and pervaded private conversations.

During his visit to Montréal on late February, I had the pleasure of having Robert Hillary King over for breakfast. He was in town with director, Ron Harpelle for the screening of the documentary, Hard Time about King’s 31-year detention at Angola State Penitentiary in Louisiana, 29 of which were in solitary confinement. King is the only freed member of the Angola 3, a trio of wrongfully accused members of the Black Panther Party. King was released in 2001 after accepting a plea bargain, which automatically set him free, while his inmates, Herman Wallace and Albert Woodfox remained in solitary...

[Montréal, Québec, Canada 1°C] On Octobre 26, 2013, Noam Chomsky was invited by Canadian Dimension Magazine to give a talk at Concordia University and Université de Montréal as part of the magazine’s 50th anniversary events. Chomsky spoke at Concordia earlier in the day and gave an evening talk at Ud’M, which I recorded and make available here. — The talk started with an introduction of Canadian Dimension by Andrea Levy, Coordinating Editor and member of the magazine’s Montréal editorial collective. — It was followed by Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, former spokesperson of the Coalition large de l’Association pour une solidarité syndicale étudiante...

Include Your Banner in a Giant Quilt representing the Québec Protest Movement! [en français] contact: widge [@] burningbillboard.org During the six-month student strike, hundreds of banners were created to denounce tuition fee increases and protest the privatization of public institutions. These banners lead demonstrations through the streets of Québec’s cities. They affiliated neighbourhood resistance and demanded an end to police repression. Banners hung from l’Îlot voyageur and the Berri street overpass, and they fluttered above the demonstrators at CLASSE’s demonstrations the 22nd of every month. Many banners hung over the facades of university and CEGEP buildings, while others blocked the...